


ward eight

by pumpkinpaperweight



Series: sge 1920s au [4]
Category: The School for Good and Evil - Soman Chainani
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1920s, Alternate Universe - Gangsters, F/M, this was a knee-jerk to red school and the oodles of toxic masculinity that seethed off it LMAO
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:40:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27233629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pumpkinpaperweight/pseuds/pumpkinpaperweight
Summary: Agatha notices the side-eyes Tedros gets. The giddy, drunken flapper boy with his dress straps falling off his shoulders, singing a jazz song to himself and trying to re-do his lipstick at the same time. He didn’t look very convincing. Most people were of the opinion Agatha was pretending he’d done it in order to give him more of a threatening reputation, to stop a repeat of last summer’s kidnapping.But Agatha had heard what he’d whispered as he’d flung himself into her lap.
Relationships: Agatha/Tedros (The School for Good and Evil)
Series: sge 1920s au [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1085841
Comments: 7
Kudos: 32





	ward eight

“Meredith is causin’ another fight.” says Hester, snapping the door shut as she comes to join the rest of Agatha’s associates in her office in her Chicago house-- the sprawling mansion currently roaring with music and cheering and debauchery. 

“He ain’t even in his club.” groans Anadil as Hester joins her behind Agatha’s chair. “What’d he do?”

“Told two separate guys they could cash, and then they both overheard the other fella braggin’ about it.”

Everyone looks at Agatha, who is pretty much inscrutable with her hat over her eyes, in the shadow of her dark window.

“Fuck d’you want me to say?” she asks, after a beat. 

“Ain’t he your moll?” pipes up one of her more insignificant associates from the back.

“Yeah. And what? Can we get on with this shitty meetin’?”

There’s a reluctant mutter of assent. Agatha doesn’t have much to say about Tedros’s exploits. She’s happy to let him have his fun. No matter what, he always comes sauntering back down the hall to her every night. 

“Well, speakin’ of Tedros Meredith,” says Emi Akiyama, the oldest supplier there, a woman of about fifty. “Looks like Rhian and Japeth are off to the big house. Forever. Would I be correct in assumin’ that’s what this party is celebrating?”

“Could be.” says Agatha easily. 

They wait for more. She doesn’t give them it.

Emi is unruffled, though.

“Ain’t that sweet? Anyway, I got my shipment reports here, as always.” She tosses the file onto the table. Agatha takes it and gives it a cursory glance, knowing it will be correct. Emi never slacks, and she’s not likely to be disloyal, not with how much Agatha pays her. 

“Hurry up, gents.” says Emi to the rest of the startled men around her. “I wanna go and get extremely bent.”

“Why host a meetin’ in the middle of a party?” grumbles someone as they all dig in their coats for the paperwork. 

“Because I knew you’d all turn up for the free moonshine.” snaps Agatha. “Didn’t wanna waste time huntin’ you all down.”

They mutter and sigh and reluctantly hand the reports over. Agatha stacks them up briskly, scanning the assembled closely-- paunchy faces under poorly shaped hats, already shiny from drink and dancing. She’d deliberately summoned them in the middle of the party, so their guards would be down. Edmund Harrison and John Leonard are both already swaying slightly. 

“As usual,” she says, “I expect them to be correct.”

Everyone laughs. Agatha doesn’t. This is typical. They laugh because they’re nervous, and Agatha doesn’t because she’s not. 

But there’s an edge to it. 

Slowly, Agatha pushes her hat back and sits forwards. They go slightly rigid, and most people glance away. No one likes looking her in the face, she knows this. She’s too grim for someone so young, and has the poker face that most of her contemporaries could never achieve. The roaring, red-faced gangsters who spray spittle with every order and saunter about in expensive suits that don’t fit them. Their previous masters. Everyone except Emi, who supplied Callis faithfully for years, has worked for someone, or several people, like that. They don’t like not knowing what she’s thinking. They don’t understand how she can crush their tyrannous masters under her heel. 

“Are we at an understandin’?” she says softly.

A pause. They draw breath--

But Agatha has heard the drag-clatter, drag-clatter, the discordant little tune that dances after him, and instead turns to the door--

It flies open.

“I lo-ove this house, I’m real mad you ain’t never brought me here befo-ore--”

Tedros flings himself inside, staggering in his heels, carrying a half-empty Ward Eight cocktail and beaming. Several people snigger as he slams the glass down on Agatha’s desk and hurls himself messily into her lap. Hester and Anadil groan. 

“Can we stay here?” asks Tedros, trying to grab her face to get a look at her. “Boss? I like this Chicago house.” 

“You have a job in New York, Meredith.” says Agatha. “In one of my clubs, I might add.”

“Buy one of those big mansions on Long Island then, I ain’t goin’ back to the apartment when you’ve got this, oh please, please--”

He pulls her face towards his and Agatha pushes him back, carefully prying his gloved fingers off her tie.

“Meredith.”

“I love it when you’re like this, all scary, c’mon, it doesn’t matter, cash or check--”

Agatha puts a hand on his chest and pushes him back.

“Check.” she says firmly. Tedros goes in for a kiss anyway and she puts her hand to his lips, getting lipstick on her fingers. “ _Later_ , Meredith. You’re bent as fuck. I’m in the middle of somethin’, just-- be quiet for a minute, alright--”

Tedros does actually do as he’s told, swinging his pearls in a circle vaguely. People are openly laughing, now. 

Agatha turns back towards them and they stop, but she can still see the glimmer of mirth. 

“Anythin’ else to declare?” she asks.

There’s a hasty chorus of;

“No, boss.”

“Better be true.” says Agatha. “Cause I’ll know whether these reports are accurate or not before you even wake up from where you passed out on my lawn, tomorrow mornin’.”

Hasty nods. 

“Sure you’re anxious for us to leave, ain’t you?” snorts Harrison, eyeing Tedros, who has gone wandering over to the vanity to examine his face, showing rather a lot of leg. 

Agatha ignores him. 

“Comin’ up to the summer season.” she says. “Better take more care in the shorter nights, because if you’re caught, I ain’t bailin’ you out, no matter how much jack Meredith just made me from sellin’ Rhian out to the cops. Alright, get out. Go and have as much fun as Meredith’s clearly havin’.”

Laughter and assent, and they stand, but Agatha notices the side-eyes Tedros gets. The giddy, drunken flapper boy with his dress straps falling off his shoulders, singing a jazz song to himself and trying to re-do his lipstick at the same time. He didn’t look very convincing. Most people were of the opinion Agatha was pretending he’d done it in order to give him more of a threatening reputation, to stop a repeat of last summer’s kidnapping. 

But Agatha had heard what he’d whispered as he’d flung himself into her lap. 

“Harrison.” she says sharply. 

The man pauses at the door, his thin face with its loose skin suddenly becoming tense. 

“Meredith just told me somethin’ rather interestin’ about you.”

Harrison’s head snaps around, and at the same moment, Tedros snaps his compact shut and starts rearranging his headdress. It’s the one Agatha had brought him after the Foxwood raid. He’s forever flinging his head about and tanging the diamonds. 

“What’d you tell her, huh?” Harrison says, with forced joviality. “What a floorflusher I am? Huh?”

Tedros’s eyes snap up to him in the mirror. They’ve lost their drunken fogginess. 

“Oh, no.” he says. “Ain’t that.”

“...then what?” snaps Harrison. “What?”

He advances towards him. Tedros spins around on the stool and stands up, suddenly taller than the other man, especially in heels. He’s six foot, maybe more, in those little kitten heels he goes sauntering about in. 

“I told her that you were bragging about deliberately runnin’ the numbers wrong in your little report.” he says slyly. 

A beat. Edmund Harrison goes puce. 

“You were drunk.” he says. “You were drunk.”

Tedros looks at him. He goes on;

“Singin’ and gigglin’ with your little girlfriends. Completely blotto. You were _drunk_! You weren’t listenin’!”

“I don’t drink.” says Tedros. 

“But-- but when you came in, you were carryin’--”

“I was carryin’ Bea’s drink for her.” says Tedros languidly. 

Harrison is silent.

“Whooooops.” says Tedros dryly, dragging out the syllables as he limps back over to sit on Agatha’s desk, on a pile of newspapers. “Should talk quieter, bastard.”

Slowly, everyone’s heads turn to where Agatha is sitting, reading the report. 

Calmly, she leans over and does a few calculations. She hands them to Tedros. 

“You went to some fancy prep school, baby. Tell me, do those look right to you?”

“Don’t think they’d look right to anyone.” says Tedros smoothly. “Shall we pass them around?”

They do. Harrison stands, struck dumb, as everyone shakes their head, or dismisses it as wrong, or grimaces--

He whirls to Tedros. 

“ _You set me up!”_

“Yes. I set a lot of people up.” says Tedros, accepting the calculations back and bearing lipstick-smudged teeth. “I’m real good at it.”

The newspaper under his hand bears the headline **COURT CHAOS: PENDRAGON HEIR COLLAPSES MID-TESTIMONY.**

Agatha sits back and throws the report into the fire. 

“Hester,” she says coolly. Calling her rabid dog to heel. 

Harrison goes white as Hester slowly emerges from behind her chair. 

“Perhaps Mr Harrison would be willin’ to to tell you the correct numbers.” Agatha says. 

She turns to the rest of the suppliers, in a huddle in the door. 

“Beat it.” she says.

They’ve never left so fast in their lives. Smirking, Anadil follows Hester and a sweating Edmund Harrison out. 

The door shutting blots out the party noise to a low murmur, rather than a roar. 

Agatha turns to Tedros, who has swung around to look at her.

“I was convincin’ yeah?”

“Extremely.” sighs Agatha. 

“Can I have that kiss, now?”

Agatha ignores him. Tedros laughs, unbothered. 

“I do like this house.” he says. “Ve-ery much. Can we take that chaise lounge in the smoking room to New York?”

“No.”

Tedros frowns.

“After all I’ve done for you. Where’s my reward, hm?” 

“I’ve thrown you an entire party, you spoiled bastard.”

Tedros brightens slightly.

“Can we go back down to the party?”

“So you can cause more fights?”

Tedros frowns.

“You know I didn’t actually cash with any of those fellas.”

“I know.” says Agatha. “You don’t need to.”

It’s an easy compliment, but he takes it anyway, snatches it up like one of his sparkly earrings.

“I know.” he says smugly. 

“You’re so easy to please.” snorts Agatha. It’s Tedros’s turn to ignore her.

“Can we go back down? Neck in one of those fancy alcoves? C’mon, it’ll be real fun.” He pulls her tie. “C’mon.” 

“You’re ridiculous.” Agatha pauses. “Yes.”

Tedros smiles at her, sly. 

* * *

Later, if you look, you’ll probably see them-- Agatha smoking by the french doors to her balcony, covered in lipstick, shirt mostly unbuttoned and sleeves rolled up to expose her tattoos. Tedros leaning over the balcony, makeup ruined and jewellery askew, swinging his legs as the two men he’d talked to earlier throw wild drunken punches at one another. He’s laughing so hard he’s sure to cry the rest of his makeup off. 

Anyone else would be worried, but Agatha keeps catching him looking back at her. Baby, you see that? Look at these stupid bastards, Agatha...

She’s not worried. 

**Author's Note:**

> Surprise? Even to me. Didn't think I'd do this when I got up this morning lmao. This was triggered by Red School's influx of abs and dodgy masculinity lmao, it made me miss my sparkly son. I love this AU. my babs


End file.
